Feeling the fear and doing it anyway

Picture by Katiew via Flickr

Everybody has something they hate doing – some part of their job, however important or trivial, that they really, really don’t want to do ever if they can possibly avoid it. For me, it’s making phone calls but other people hate giving presentations, meeting one-on-one with their boss, creating resources, e-mailing people, dealing with IT or any of 101 things that other people think is no big deal but that you lie awake at night fretting about. The hardest thing to do –especially at three a.m. Monday morning - is to admit to yourself that they’re right: it really is no big deal.

There often isn’t really a reason that you’ve grown to regard the task in question with a combination of fear and loathing – sometimes you’ve just had a really bad experience, sometimes you’ve had no experience with it prior to your current position and sometimes you’re just behaving irrationally. The important thing is that you need to get over it because letting it get the better of you and adversely affect your job performance is not something you want to happen.

Of course, I’m not going to bring up a problem like this without providing some solutions, so here are my top three strategies for curing yourself of work phobias.

Throw yourself in at the deep end

Rather like jumping into cold water rather than easing in, or ripping of a band aid, for some people the best solution to not wanting to do something is to just do it: do it now and do it as often as possible. If you’ve been putting off making a lot of calls, schedule a day when that’s all you do; if you hate presentations volunteer to give all the presentations on behalf of your team for the next couple of months, and so on. The idea is that once you do something, you lose the fear of the unknown that was previously holding you back and repeated exposure will reduce the anxiety you feel about the activity. This worked for me when I had to call a list of about 100 people. I had been putting it off for as long as possible but then one day I had to just give in, sit down and start making calls. After three days of continuous phoning I still didn’t like doing it, but I was able to put it on my to-do list without dreading the experience.

Dip your toe in the shallow end

For those of you that are less crazy about throwing it all at the wall, an alternative is to start small: if you hate presentations try doing some for people you work closely with and who make you feel comfortable, then gradually work your way up to the really scary stuff. By making your first experience of whatever it is you don’t want to do as pleasant and non-stressful as possible, you decrease your apprehension of repeating it and thus gain confidence gradually. This might be less feasible if you’ve really left it all to the last minute however – sometimes option one is more of a necessity than a choice.

Going to swimming lessons (I’m stretching the metaphor to the breaking point here)

The third way to get over your aversion to doing something is to put a lot of preparation into it: if it’s a presentation make sure its planned and scripted and practice it as much as possible; if you’ve got a lot of calls to make write a script so you don’t forget what to say and again, practice on friends and co-workers. Preparation can reduce your disinclination to do a task because it increases your feeling of control over the situation. If you’re as prepared as you can possibly be, it takes a lot of the uncertainty out of the equation and can make you feel calmer about the situation. The more confidence you gain, the less preparation you’ll find it necessary to do, but the first few times it can be quite time consuming, so this is possibly not the best method if you’re extremely busy.

So there you have it: three ways to beat your personal work demon. What do you hate to do at work? Let me know below! For more work advice check out my posts on regaining control and procrastination.